The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

The Big Yellow Button Returns

Posted on | July 31, 2021 | Comments Off on The Big Yellow Button Returns

 

As every regular reader of this blog knows, the yellow “donate” button takes you to my PayPal account, where you can contribute dollars, pounds, Euros, shekels, rubles or whatever to support the blog.

PayPal has been very, very good to me over the years, and I was disturbed when I read that PayPal is teaming up with the ADL and SPLC to defund alleged “extremist” sites. We know very well how Big Tech has spent the past five years deplatforming anyone who dissents from the “social justice” narrative, and it’s frighten to think that PayPal would join forces with an organization as thoroughly disreputable as the SPLC.

David Sacks, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist who was once chief operating officer (COO) of PayPal, shares his concerns about this issue:

I’m a Jewish American who has special appreciation for the ADL’s historical role as a watchdog against antisemitism. . . .
The point is that the ADL, like the SPLC, now weighs in on issues far beyond its original purview.
Just as there is no set definition of “hate speech” that everyone agrees upon, the definition of a “hate group” is nebulous and ripe for overuse by those with an agenda. So it should come as no surprise that the ever-increasing list of suspects has grown from unquestionable hate groups, like neo-nazis and the KKK, to organizations who espouse socially conservative views, like the Family Research Council, religious liberty advocates, and even groups concerned with election integrity.
The reclassification of political opponents as hate groups has been enabled by expansive redefinitions of terms like racism, segregation and white supremacy. . . .
I have no desire to defend genuinely hateful or extremist groups. Indeed, when I was COO at PayPal, we regularly worked with law enforcement to restrict illegal activity on our platform. But we are talking about something very different here: shutting down people and organizations that express views that are entirely lawful, even if they are unpopular in Silicon Valley. . . .
I implore my successors at PayPal and other Big Tech companies to stop throwing kindling on the fires of populism by locking people out of the online public square and the modern web-based economy. Silenced voices and empty stomachs are fuel for the very extremism you claim to oppose.

Read the whole thing. The problem with boycotting PayPal is that there is no comparable substitute. Right now, I’m trying to plan a reporting trip to Florida, perhaps in September, so I once again urge readers to recall the Five Most Important Words in the English Language:

HIT THE FREAKING TIP JAR!



 

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